Official Blog of Visionary Author Lianne Downey

Posts from the “Self-healing” Category

Last Friday, the day before an event in Charlottesville, Virginia, which may soon bring down a President, a total stranger and I experienced a profound moment that made the next day’s clashes that much more horrifying, and yet, gave us an insight into how the country might heal.

It’s not your usual rhetoric from social scientists, as helpful as that might be. Our solution is what you might consider “out there” in terms of its underlying philosophy. But if this stranger and I could see, feel, and understand it—simultaneously—isn’t there hope for others whose lives seem, on the surface, to come from completely different cultures? A divide we have trouble crossing?

What unites us? We are human. As human beings, we all possess … hair. As women … it matters to us. A lot. We think about it every morning. We fret over it and we style it and we curse it and we admire ourselves in mirrors when it does what we want it to. And yet—we have a natural divide. Your hair and my hair and her hair and his hair—they are all unique, right? What you have to do with yours to get it into shape, well, it’s something I might not know about.

If this stranger and I could see, feel, and understand it …

The philosopher/psychologist William James wrote about this in a famous essay titled On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings and it’s one of my favorites. We will never, ever, ever fully understand the “other”—unless we step outside of our insular worlds and ask. Even so, we only have words to tell us and anything we can find in our own experience that relates, roughly, to that description.

I had a need to know something highly personal about an “other,” so that’s exactly what I did. I stopped a total stranger and asked her about her hair. Not so strange you say? It happens in salons? We were shopping in a Target store, completely minding our own business inside the usual silent divide. Still not unheard of? I am white and the woman is black.

Knowing someone from a prior lifetime is no reason to stay in an unhappy past life relationship. Here are five ways to fix it, or finish it!

I often write “Dear Abby” type replies to people who comment on my most popular article on the Internet who have found themselves stuck in relationships that are making them unhappy. My article is about identifying past life lovers, friends, and enemies. Thankfully, that in and of itself begins to answer the question. They have come together to rectify some past life issues that have left them feeling unbalanced. But it’s never quite that simple.

A little Messenger in the garden has graced me with his (or her) wisdom three times now, over the course of three days of lunching en plein air with Joseph. Not so little, actually. She’s a glittering, iridescent green, Figeater beetle, loud as a lawnmower, and she has insisted on landing in my hair while I’m eating. Which means she’d become a totem for me, my beetle totem.

The third time she landed, she stayed so long Joseph was able to grab the camera for her closeups. I finally had to urge her gently away because lunch was over. I will admit, I kept asking Joseph, “What is she doing? Is she leaving anything behind?!?”

Yes, she was. A message that I should be the one leaving things behind.

This San Diego beetle is so large, she kept tugging the hair at the top of my head as she explored at my shoulder. I did happen to be eating one of Joseph’s breakfast puddings with figs and chocolate in it, but she wasn’t interested in that. I’ve read that these beetles, related to Egyptian scarabs, aren’t interested in fresh fruit. They like the stuff that’s already decomposing. (Good news for Joseph’s pudding, which was delicious, of course!)

So what could I do but look up the meaning of this close animal encounter in the trusty Animal-Speak Pocket Guide. When a creature gets right in your face, or exhibits unusual behavior in a way that definitely says, “Hey! I’m talking to you,” it’s wise to pay attention. One of your Cosmic CoAuthors is trying to reach you and you’re not getting it. Time to send in the animal totem!

The “Healer” opens her consciousness to the Infinite, the Universe, Source, God, with the intention of serving humanity. Or maybe just a single human. She fills herself with the Light energy that pours in. She is the empty vessel.

The Infinite overflows into her being, like water pouring out after a dam has broken. The Healer seeks this inflow as greedily as we seek water when thirsty, but the Infinite also requires the Healer. The Healer offers the negative pole in the electrical system, the deficit. The Infinite offers the positive pole, the surfeit. Energy, all up and down the frequency spectrum, from dimension to dimension, from pole to pole, from human to human, flows according to this pattern.

They connect, the Healer and Infinite Intelligence. The power flows, and the charge reverses.

This painting is called “Remember Me” and it’s dedicated to my big sister, Linda Jo Hunter, animal advocate, wildlife tracker, artist, and author (Lonesome for Bears). It happened by accident. Again. It all started with two new paint colors and an elephant’s eye.

Linda and I went shopping for art supplies during her most recent visit to San Diego. We’d just had a lovely lunch date, one of the two times a year I get to see her. When she and husband Mike travel to or from their home in Washington state to their winter camping and surf adventures in the Baja peninsula, they always stop in San Diego and we get to spend a couple of hours catching up.

Later on, she would show me the oil paintings she created this winter. But for now, she was encouraging me to buy two new colors to add to my watercolor paints. I’m a newbie and definitely more author than artist, so I need all the encouragement I can get. Phthalo Turquoise and Indian Yellow had drawn my attention. “Oh, you’ll love the Indian Yellow,” said she.